hurricanemaxi
Joined: 08 Sep 2011
Posts: 66
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 Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject: Open Source and the Open Road, Part 1 |
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A new wave of really cool devices will soon do more than simply integrate your mobile gadgets with your automobile. Pairing your smartphone with your car's sound system and on-board navigation platform is already old hat. Car makers are now looking at how to expand that concept to enhance the notion of your car being treated as one big mobile device.
Choosing the operating platform for this new level of connected car functionality will be no easy task for OEMs. Low-end cars use 30 to 50 electronic control units (ECUs) embedded everywhere from the body, doors and dash, to the roof, trunk and seats. High-end cars stash even more ECUs in every available nook and cranny.
For example, high-end cars like the S-class Mercedes-Benz rely on more than 20 million lines of code. The number of coded lines will grow to over 300 million lines of software code once the connected car hits the highways.
New software that drives the next wave of automotive mobile services must integrate an operating system to supplement rather than to supplant what already exists. If it wants in on the trend, open source will have to gain favor with OEMs already committed to proprietary systems.
"I think this is going to be the next really big explosion in terms of the open source ecosystem changing over in the automotive industry. Software as a differentiator for cars is really where the industry is going. We will see the same thing going on with car makers as we see now with apps in other mobile devices," Peter Vescuso, executive vice president of Black Duck Software, told LinuxInsider.
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A Different Kind of Smart Car
The connected car concept depends on whether you view the wish list as a consumer or as an automotive OEM or device developer. One view is that the connected car is already here -- a consumer can connect a smartphone or iPod to a car's sound system.
However, "that's not really innovation. We've had that for a while," Joel A. Hoffmann, automotive business strategist for Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and member of the board of directors and marketing lead for the Genivi Alliance, told Linux Insider.
Another view is that the connected car will integrate cool technology into the driving experience. For example, the focus is more on content and entertainment and using the cellphone to gain a connection to the Internet for car-based driving tools, he explained.
"We've done just about all that can be done with connecting smartphones and iPods. Of course, it can be finessed a bit," Hoffman said.
Road Not Traveled
Some software visionaries like Vescuso see the car as one big mobile device. It will pick up where the smaller and more limited mobile devices leave off.
"The idea of a connected car is evolving. Consumers want the connectivity in the car that they have on their computer in the home," Pushpahas Joshi, subject matter expert on in-vehicle-infotainment for KPIT, told LinuxInsider.
The car as mobile device will have a separate platform with access to all car functions. There will be apps for that approach -- that's what people expect will happen with the next wave of mobile car devices. But that view is not yet a reality, he cautioned.
"I'm not aware that it exists yet. But I have talked to people within the automotive industry and know that several companies in Europe are already basing their products on the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) back end as a model," Vescuso said.
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